A brutal battle for ballet supremacy

ACENTOS

Watch these guys rehearsing Acentos, Blanco’s fiendishly difficult, testosterone-fuelled male ballet and you understand what is meant by Latin heat.

Blanco is the new wave Cuban choreographer who takes dance away from your comfort zone. Born in Santiago de Cuba, he fell in love with ballet as a boy.

Too short to be a première danseur, Blanco turned to choreography. He knew at 5-foot-3 he would never own centre stage. With choreography that revealed his own inner fire, he fuelled fantasy and expressed dark thoughts.

Acentos, danced at Hamilton Place on Dec. 6, is Blanco’s finest ballet, erotic and manipulative. Passionate and visceral, it takes us to a brutal arena of male competition. Five hunky ballet boys battle for supremacy. If you ever thought ballet was for sissies, Acentos will change your mind.

“I danced my first ballet at seven,” Blanco says. “I came from a musical family. There was always music in our home and dancing made me feel good. My mother would take me to watch ballet dancers perform and I just knew that’s what I wanted to do when I grew up.

“I was so attracted to their refined look, mesmerized by their elegant presence.”

At eight, Blanco went to Havana to study with Alicia Alonso’s Ballet Nacional de Cuba.

“That’s when I tried to make my own ballets. I called my first one Play and Dance. I was such a kid, really, totally charmed and obsessed by the dramatic effect of dance.”

Blanco realized all too soon he wasn’t going to grow into Prince Charming.

“That’s when I knew I would have to express through others what I could not do myself.”

Putting designs in motion, Blanco created works that displayed his own joy and love of life.

“I wanted to bring out masculine potential. I wanted to challenge classical techniques. That’s why I made Acentos. I wanted to extract from the men I worked with full physical qualities, expressiveness and dance technique.”

Blanco knows male Cuban dancers are known for their full helping of machismo. He knows they take the stage with passion and physical prowess. He knows they ignite fire in their audience.

“Are they sexy? Of course. They sell that image onstage because to Cubans masculine power can be unleashed through ballet.

“It’s in their blood,” Blanco says with a grin. “Cuban males dance from a very early age. Dance is just a part of their being. For me, I tap into the liveliness of their youth. I ask them to fill the stage with powerful male presence. Because I bring out all my zest for life through ballet, I ask them to do the same.”

Creating dances fulfils Blanco’s desire to create, to express his own feelings.

“From this work I gain positive energy. I try to explore the tropical nature and Latin environment in which I live. Cuba is my land and I love it. That feeling is also there in my dances. Ballet evolves, of course, like the rest of society, but for me it will always be the seed of creativity.”